 "Great sound from a small package, but get it for CD's and radio, not for streaming music" | 2008-07-14 |
| - Reviewed By ybearwithme |
| We recently downsized our home and have no room for the 15 year old stereo component system and huge speakers. I just wanted something to play CD's on and listen to the radio. This fit the bill and has a sleek, space age look in addition to great sound. Nice that this is easily moved from downstairs to upstairs and vice versa. You can't do THAT with a big stereo system.. The idea of streaming music from a PC is great, but since I don't really need that, I did not care much that reviewers did not like the program and that it was challenging to get it to work. My son at first thought it would be cool to stream songs from a PC but became immediately disinterested when he found out it had to be connected by a cord to the PC and did not have wireless capability for that function. For me, this little stereo is perfect as I am not I-Pod or MP-3 savvy, and that is what seems to be flooding the market these days, with speaker systems made just for them. I happened to get a very good deal on this one, as I see it is now selling by the same vendor , used, for 3 times what I paid, new. The AM and FM reception is pretty decent. The first of two main reasons I did not rate this a 5 is that I don't really like the two external wire antennas for the tuner. It would have been better to incorporate the FM antenna into the power cord and the AM into the unit somehow, but I can live with trying to hide the wires behind something. (The FM antenna needs to be laying horizontally, and the AM antenna wraps around a squarish gizmo.) The second main reason I rated it a 4 is that it really would be SO much better if it had a 3-CD changer. I'll just have to learn how to burn 150 songs onto a CD-R. It will play MP-3 format CD's, though I haven't tried it yet. You really need to use the remote, although I think there are buttons with VERY tiny print on the front of the system. The sound is pretty awesome (and can be cranked pretty loud) from something so compact that can go on a tabletop and does not have detached speakers or a sub woofer. I would recommend this to a friend if they could get a good deal like I did and don't care much about MP-3 players or haggling with the music streaming. This may be comparable to a Bose system but for less money. Mine came new in the box, but it had perhaps been returned by someone because the remote's battery was supposed to have a plastic protector to save its power, and that was missing. No big deal. I did see that the manufacture date was 2005; I am not surprised, but it works for me. I am very happy with my purchase. It meets all of my specifications except a multi CD changer. |
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 "Great concept with abysmal execution" | 2007-08-19 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2OG2QILI3XQTQ |
| Caveat emptor: As with most Sony products the styling is well done, but the supplied software frankly doesn't work. The software setup is awful, and on Windows XP, it eventually can be made to work initially, but after a short period of time it simply stops working. Re-installation appears not to fix the problem. Don't even think about trying to use this with Windows Vista. Sony technical support have no answers and know nothing of any plans to provide Vista support. Sony have a real problem in this respect: (Actually, their customer base has the problem). I recently purchased two notebook webcams in the US after being assured by the Sony Store sales person that Vista drivers were available on the net. Of course, they weren't, and Sony has no plans to make them available. I have been a loyal Sony customer for nearly 20 years now, and I believe that I have given the company the benefit of the doubt on too many occasions now. Frankly, the styling is irrelevant if the functionality and after sales support is just not there. So, I have now made my last purchase of Sony equipment, as I suspect that the only thing that they will respect are customers voting with their feet and wallets! If enough do so, then their share holders will force them to listen. |
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| "One to be avoided... another let down by Sony" | 2007-04-30 |
| - Reviewed By furbydogg |
Avoid this like the plague!
I liked the look and idea of this product when it first came out but have been seriously let down by poor the poor programmers and service department at Sony.
As other reviewers have stated, the M-Crew software is the weak link with the bundle. Sony's lack of inter-operability with other media server software is another reason this Hi-Fi will continue to dissapoint.
I will not go on about the lack of usability and functionality of the software as other have covered this. Instead I'll cut to the chase and tell you that after 9 months of reasonably contented use, the M-Crew software now no longer runs. As another reviewer here has mentioned, the service just starts and then immediately stops. Nothing has changed on my machine and it is not a dual processor like the other reviewer's machine.
I have emailed and called Sony support but they have been criminally negligent and will not support this product. They have not released any updates or patches to the software and the fact that no other network products like this have been released by Sony seems to say a lot. I work in the IT profession and have tried to the best of my knowledge (and that available on the internet) to resolve this to no avail.
I am now left with two expensive and average CD players. If you buy the NAS-CZ1 you will be taking a big chance. |
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 "Sony NAS-CZ1 MP3/Radio/CD shelf system" | 2006-12-27 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2MFG8MF1Y9H6V |
Just got this unit from Best-Buy during Christmas, and really like the way it looks and sounds. I give it an "A" on these categories.
But like others who have reviewed this product, I'd give it a "D" for ease of use, especially for the m-Crew server software that is required to use any of the online features (such as MP3 and WebRadio), which is why I bought it.
The mCrew software has an interface that is very hard to understand and very un-intuitive for a typical windows user. Sony should hire a few good windows application developers... As others mentioned, the album and playlist features are difficult to figure out and seem to require alot of time to build (like its making a copy of each file you load, instead of just referencing it). One thing I immediately noticed is that it can only play MP3s stored on the machine where the mCrew server is installed, and not on a network'ed computer (via a shared drive). This isn't going to work well for me...
I don't mind having it run on a computer that stays up all the time (because I have that sort of setup anyway), but when I tried to install mCrew on my "server" computer (which is fortunately an XP Pro machine - or otherwise mCrew wouldn't have worked), it fails to run. I tried everything, but can't figure out what is wrong. The software creates no log files or other helpful output to debug this problem. The service just starts and then immediately fails. Maybe it's because I have a dual CPU system? A real pain. I'll have to run this on another computer if I decide to keep it, which I probably won't.
This could have been a great solution to the combo-MP3/CD/Radio/shelf system, esp when compared to other more expensive alternatives, but the software turns this potentially great product into (basically) a very expensive FM radio. |
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 "It's Nice, but Now Discontinued" | 2006-10-31 |
| - Reviewed By User: A37ODAPH5MKRO0 |
I purchased an NAS-CZ1 as part of a liquidation sale for the product. I was looking to replace a plain-old bookshelf stereo and wanted to be able to access my wide variety of MP3s. The other systems on the market were either very expensive or were just components that hooked up to an existing stereo system. I wanted all-in-one and this model hit the bill. It has a CD player, AM/FM, and a network interface to the Sony M-Crew Server software, which only works with Window XP.
Plug it in out-of-the-box and you have a pretty good bookshelf stereo. When matched to an Internet connected PC, a whole new world arrived. The M-Crew software is a bit challenging and I had to spend a few hours rebuilding playlists that I had set up to run with MusicMatch. It took me a couple of tries to get the computer and the stereo to recognize each other, but finally they did. The ability to play internet radio is a big plus. It only supports Windows Media compatible radio streams, which fortunately for me included my two favorite local stations as well as WFUV in NY, the best radio station in the world. I was in heaven, since I live about 300 miles from their radio reach!
I wish I had bought several at the price that I paid. Sony has a new model coming out at the same price point, the Sony CPF-IX001. The added support for 802.11 b/g in the box, but removed the CD player. I'm glad that it uses the same server software as mine so maybe Sony will improve that it a bit. I'm going to wait until this new model gets a bit more time in the market. Maybe I'll be able to get one for dirt cheap if it doesn't take off! |
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| "Looks Good, Great Sound, Ok Software" | 2006-04-14 |
| - Reviewed By ralouie |
This Network Audio Player has outstanding sound, and easily fits on my bookshelf. The black and silver case design is a huge improvement over the cheap plastic look of many bookshelf systems sold today.
One of the best features is the ability of the unit to play music stored on your computer hard drive. From my existing music library that I created using Windows Media Player, the NAS-CZ1 plays the music one song after another, album by album. You can also create playlists if you want selected songs.
The challenge is to get the software and the NAS-CZ1 configured. I would say that this is a project for someone with some hands-on home networking skills, as I wanted a wireless setup. Since the NAS-CZ1 requires an Ethernet cable, I used a Linksys wap54 wireless access point to connect to my home wireless network.
All the internet features are provided through the Sony software called m-crew server. There is very little documentation on this software, even when I looked using Google. It is also version 1.0 and there apparently are no updates to the software that comes on the cd with the unit. M-Crew server is a very straightforward, no-frills solution to broadcasting music to the NAS-CZ1. There are a few things about it though. First, you need to use some version of Windows XP. Windows 2000,2003, 98, etc. will not work and the installer on the cd will stop you from proceeding. So you must have an XP computer that is on whenever you want to listen to music stored on your hard disk. This means that when I want to fall asleep to the music, I need to leave my computer running.
You need to remember that the account you installed the m-crew server software needs to be logged in. This is because the software runs background processes that won't be started until the account user logs in. Not a problem if you have a single user account login on the computer and the computer is re-booted for some reason, but I will have to look at setting up the computer to automatically startup the software background services when the computer re-boots. I found this out when Microsoft rebooted my pc for one of their automatic software updates. The connection from my NAS-CZ1 just stopped working until I re-logged into the account again.
One other problem with the m-crew server software or possibly the NAS-CZ1 is that you cannot have songs with titles using Asian characters. So any Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. songs will not play on the NAS-CZ1. In fact, the m-crew server software will let you store a say, Chinese titled song just fine. The problem arises when the NAS-CZ1 tries to play it. It will error out and you need to skip the song and restart the player manually. To delete the song, you need to (and they don't tell you this in the documentation) edit the m-crew server content database table using MS Access to delete the row containing the song, or edit out the Asian characters and you can then play the song. It seems that the NAS-CZ1 only has the ability to display english characters and that is why it errors on non-english titles. You would think that an international company like Sony would release product that accommodates languages other than english character based items.
If all else fails with the m-crew server software, uninstall and install it again.
Internet radio is another interesting feature that, if you can get running, sounds really nice. First, choose internet radio stations with a bit rate of no less than 32k, for decent sound. Second, forget about any radio stations that use their own radio player (do not use Windows media player), or require Real Player. If the radio station url does not end with an "aspx", then you can be pretty sure it won't work on the NAS-CZ1. Sony provides about 10 sample stations for the NAS-CZ1, but does not tell you how to find more radio stations. So the problems is finding internet radio sations and testing them to see if they work on the NAS-CZ1. Time consuming at best, and I have not tried searching for more stations outside of my initial setup effort of the NAS-CZ1.
At this time, I am impressed with the technology that Sony put into this unit, but I can also see a lot of buyers looking for a quick and easy way of listening to music on their computer hard dirve returning this unit due to the complicated setup and troubleshooting needed. I bought my NAS-CZ1 at Fry's for $189 and it was their last boxed unit, that was a return.
Personally, I like the unit and now that I have figured out the limitations and quirks, I'm considering a second unit for my home office. It is a real delight to be able to have my entire music collection available without having to manually change cds. |
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Expedited Available
